DRIVEN BY JUSTICE

Personal injury and employment attorneys Mark Venardi
and Martin Zurada used to be on the other side of the table,
defending big insurance companies against plaintiff claims
of people who had been wronged or injured in vehicle or
workplace scenarios. But the work wasn’t gratifying, and they
felt compelled to instead advocate for the underdogs.

“I know what it’s like to be hurt by someone else, and I know
what it’s like to be a blue-collar worker,” says Venardi, who
served in the U.S. Coast Guard before starting college at 25
years old, eventually leaving his partnership at one of the largest
defense firms in the country to co-found Venardi Zurada LLP.

“I started my first firm with one pro bono case that my previous
firm wanted to settle for $200,000, but I cared about the client
and felt the case had value,” says Venardi. “A few months later,
we won the case for $1.3 million.” With that, Venardi launched
his own firm and, to this day, it still exists for one reason only:
to help the people who need it most.

RESULTS THAT GRATIFY

Venardi has tried complex personal injury cases to verdict and
received multiple multimillion-dollar verdicts and settlements,
including in complex and challenging catastrophic vehicle,
big rig/trucking, boating, motorcycle, bicycle, aeronautical,
discrimination, retaliation, wage and hour, and business/breach
of contract cases that the firm accepts on a contingency fee.

But it’s not just the big cases that matter most to the Venardi
Zurada team. It’s also the smaller cases that make a big difference
in individual lives. It’s the handwritten notes that read, “I want
to thank your mother for having you.” The sincere appreciation
expressed by a client who called Venardi while the jury was still
deliberating in a bet-the-farm, multimillion-dollar case and said,
“I don’t know if we are going to win but your dedication, caring,
believing and execution are the best that I have ever seen. It was
worth the fight just to experience that.” Venardi and his client won
a large multimillion-dollar verdict in the case.

“Big or small, we grit it out to get the best result possible for
each client,” says Venardi. “And we don’t just litigate; we take
cases to trial and spend a lot of time and financial resources
doing research and focus groups to strategize the best way to
communicate our clients’ stories to jurors. What makes me the
most proud is when we exceed our clients’ expectations.”